Young Tribal Woman Rescues Fox

The Tribal totem for the Mashantucket Pequot people is the fox. Standing for the Mashantucket People, the fox has gone through a hard, neglected winter. Murdered, sold into slavery, given blankets from a smallpox ward in England, The Tribe was nearly shattered, and its’ people scattered from Its’ original home of Long Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, to as far as Bermuda, the deep South, Chicago, New York and California.

One elderly Grandmother kept the fire alive – located on the last 5-acre “reservation” parcel left by Connecticut, after Connecticut sold off their property granted by the US Federal Government, the Grandmother kept calling her great-nephews, grand-children, great-grand-children, and begging them to come home and rebuild the Tribe. It is the very youngest generation, brought back to the Tribal Lands, that have rescued the old fox in out of the cold winter, have rebuilt the Wetu (Built in circles out of saplings, to represent the circle of the family) and with great joy sharing the warmth of the fire, comfort each other through the last of the winter. This is a portrait of one of the lovely new generation, gathering the fox in her arms.